Louisiana Boy Survives Alligator Attack But Loses Arm

July 31, 2008 11:57 p.m. EST

Slidell, LA (AHN) - An 11-year-old boy survived after an alligator bit off his left arm while swimming in a pond here Wednesday but doctors failed to re-attach the severed arm recovered later from the reptile.

Devin Funck is in stable condition, Amiee Goforth, spokesman of Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, told Fox News Thursday.

The boy from Slidell was swimming with two friends at the pond called Crystal Lake when the 10-foot-long, 500-pound alligator dubbed Big Joe attacked around 3 p.m. The two girls with him were able to swim back to shore to get help but the fast alligator caught Funck's arm and pulled him under.

"It was a miracle that the boy resurfaced, and it was the miracle of all miracles that the gator did not come back a second time as the boy lay in the water," St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain was quoted as saying by the Times-Picayune.

The boy ignored the pain and tried to climb a levee to safety. Two responding policemen reached the maimed boy and rushed him to Slidell Memorial Hospital. From there, the boy was airlifted to Ochsner Medical Center.

Wildlife authorities hunted and killed the alligator 3-1/2 hours after the attack. They cut open the animal's belly, recovered the intact arm, and rushed it to the hospital in a freezer. But the arm had already run out of blood and doctors could no longer surgically re-attach it.